Thursday, June 18, 2015

Revising the Bibliography with Extensive Help from a Colleague and Friend

In the two months since the bibliography went live on the website I believe that I have revised and corrected at least 1000 of the approximately 8800 entries, and I have also added around 100 new entries. The editorial process has been at least as extensive as my process in preparing the 5th edition 25 years ago, but in many respects it has been more thorough. For example, I have checked and double-checked all the author names, adding birth and / or death dates in hundreds of cases. I have also checked the titles, and have read all annotations, and in some cases revised annotations in the process of creating a new subject index. Of course, the process has been greatly speeded up and facilitated by the ability to search for biographical and bibliographical details on the Internet. Another great help is the availability of digital facsimiles of so many of the books on the Internet. In certain cases I have linked to digital facsimiles within the annotations of entries, and I plan to link to many more digital facsimiles in the future. You can see all my major corrections and additions by clicking on the "Additions & Extensive Revisions" subject in the subject index. 

Besides my own work improving and correcting the bibliography, I was greatly helped by my colleague Webb Dordick who sent me a list of around 150-200 corrections and recommended substitutions in June. I incorporated nearly all of Webb's suggestions and corrections in the database, and I hope that he will continue to read the new electronic version critically and forward further revisions and corrections, and recommendations for new additions.

No comments:

Post a Comment